The Conawalki Murder Mysteries Book One
by
For years, the residents of the tiny (fictionalized) town of Conawalki, Ontario have struggled to rebuild their lives and their community’s identity after the town was uprooted and moved in the late 1950s to make way for the St. Lawrence Seaway. In the spring of 1973, a pair of brutal murders shatters the uneasy peace, threatening to rip the community apart. As shocking secrets begin to surface, it becomes clear that Conawalki is more than just a town in search of an identity; it’s a place built on hidden truths and unspoken fears.
At the heart of the turmoil are the “Three Smart Boys”, teenage friends and bandmates navigating their own identity crisis. As they chase their dreams and grapple with the town’s unraveling mysteries, they become entangled in a web of murder, blackmail, betrayal, and a brush with death that will change them forever.
In a town where the past refuses to stay submerged, the boys must uncover who they really are before the deception that blankets their community like a looming shadow destroys everything they hold dear.
Chapter 1
THE ONE
Sunday, May 20, 1973
7:30 p.m.
The One lit his cigarette, then flicked the match out the truck window.
Not dry enough to catch fire, he thought. Too bad.
He glanced toward the St. Lawrence River to see if the boat he was waiting for was approaching (it wasn’t) or if pleasure boaters on that warm spring evening might be curious about his vehicle parked at the road’s end (not so far). The clients he did business with had failed to arrive at the designated time, and the longer he waited, the greater the chance of drawing unwanted attention. He had some choice words for them, but decided to keep them to himself.
“The customer is always fuckin’ right,” he muttered.
To deal with the boredom of waiting, his helper stood near the water’s edge, downing a bottle of cheap booze—London Dry supper wine. “Come alive for a dollar five.” He called it “super” wine and laughed at his cleverness.
The radio was on to help pass the time. The closest AM station, from Ottawa, flooded the airways with endless loops of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon,” “Delta Dawn,” and “Sweet City Woman” by the Stampeders (this to conform to Canadian content regulations). The One’s helper insisted on singing along with everything, making the waiting even more painful.
Anything to keep him amused, the One thought. I can’t do this transaction without him, as much as I’d like to.
Having finished consuming the hooch, his helper tossed the bottle into the river, then marched over to the open window to ask why they were still waiting.
“Yanks,” the One replied. “Arrogant and unpredictable.”
“What a crappy waste of time on a holiday weekend!” his helper complained. “I had other plans, you know.”
“Remember how much I’m paying you for being a time-waster,” the One replied. “We’ll get a fat payoff, and those fuckin’ Yanks will get their product.”
“Crank ’er up!” his helper yelled as Stevie Wonder bleated “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” for the third time in the past hour. His helper sang along at full volume, changing the word “apple” to “asshole” and dissolving into a fit of laughter.
The One glanced in the mirror toward the setting sun, willing it to vanish, knowing that dusk would likely hasten the Americans’ crossing of the river.
Patience, he chided himself. Looking north across the expanse of parkland that separated the river from the town, he focused on some figures in the distance looking back at him.
Well, what have we here? Two? No, three. Yes. The Three.
That number and those figures in the distance sparked his fury.
Soon, and in the twinkling of an eye, they’ll be going home to Jesus, he assured himself, quoting one of his granny’s favourite sayings.
Patience.
Heather Curran on Reader Views (12/2025) wrote:"Michael Saver’s Lost Village is a striking, ambitious debut, reaching well beyond the familiar borders of a murder mystery. The first in The Conawalki Murder Mysteries series, Saver’s novel transcends genres, just as it does time. Set in 1973 in the small “replacement village” of Conawalki—a town rebuilt after the original was flooded during the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway—the novel immediately hooks the reader with its haunting premise, when two horrific murders shatter the village. Saver uses this history of displacement beautifully, exploring how a community tries desperately to reconstruct not just its streets and homes, but also its shared identity. The result is a supernatural coming-of-age mystery steeped in atmosphere, memory, and collective trauma.
With the murder investigation underway, Saver’s talent for tension and pacing shines. As long-buried secrets slowly make their way to the surface, the reader is drawn deeper into the intricate, sometimes claustrophobic world of a tiny town that has already lived through one major loss. At the heart of the story is Mark, a sensitive, musically-gifted teenager whose dreams allow him to communicate with the spirits of the two beloved community members who were killed. While there’s a supernatural element, Saver never pushes it too far, and the premise remains grounded, believable, and moving. It is his relationship with his loving Gran, along with his friendships with bandmates Seb and Flix, that anchor the story in authentic teenage vulnerability.
Mark is only one of the many richly drawn characters populating Conawalki. Each feels lived-in, carrying their own weight of history and secrets. Saver’s real-life small-town background shows in the authenticity of the setting and the relationships, and he writes with a poet’s attention to emotional texture, especially in the dream sequences that cast Conawalki as a “thin place”—a paradox created when the village was moved, leaving gaps between past and present.
As the first installment in the series, Lost Village evidently hints at a much larger narrative yet to come. While readers craving tidy resolution may find themselves wanting more, this open-endedness feels intentional. As well, the pacing occasionally slows during community meetings and procedural scenes, however, these quieter moments establish important rifts beneath Conawalki’s reconstructed surface.
Readers who enjoy the quieter supernatural tones of Stephen King and the small-town layering of Louise Penny will feel right at home. Saver writes Conawalki not just as a setting, but as a character—haunted, hopeful, and full of fractures. Lost Village is essential reading for anyone drawn to stories where place becomes character, and where the supernatural serves as a lens for examining how communities process collective trauma.
This is a story about what we lose when we’re forced to rebuild, and what strange new gifts emerge from loss. One of the most refreshing aspects of Lost Village is in its refusal to offer easy answers, marking Saver as a writer unafraid to let mysteries breathe, to trust readers with ambiguity, and to honour the spaces where one life intersects with many lives across time. There is no doubt the next book in this series will be worth the wait. A compelling beginning to a richly imagined series, Saver’s Lost Village sets a carefully-constructed foundation that promises even deeper, more rewarding chapters ahead."
5*
"It Takes a Village to Find a Killer
The beauty of small village living is that everyone knows everyone and their families, and the families’ gossip. Privacy doesn’t quite exist when friendly neighbors are curious about what’s happening one street over. And so Michael Saver’s mystery novel, Lost Village: The Conawalki Murder Mysteries, opens while a woman, staring through her binoculars, narrates the town’s goings-on to her twin sister. All of this is par for the course until the next morning, when the binoculared woman is found bound, gagged, and dead in her home.
Lost Village follows a collection of characters as they attempt to unravel the grisly murder. Spearheading the cast are three adolescent boys, fondly known as “The Three Smart Boys,” who are primarily interested in passing their high school classes, playing music, and outsmarting the local bullies. Saver’s characters are witty, and he develops them with a sense of dry humor and wry cheekiness.
“The Three Smart Boys,” Mark, Flix, and Seb, are young men growing up in the early 1970s when compassion for individuals outside the mainstream is thin or nonexistent. Saver explores what it means to be a member of the LGBTA+ community in a time when brutality and intolerance were the norm. Early in the novel, Mark literally awakens from a dream and finally recognizes or admits to himself his strong emotions for Flix. In other parts of the town, though, other men are not within the bliss of romance and love but are struggling with anonymous and criminal cruelty.
Saver’s villain is more than just a traditional “bad guy.” Saver’s mystery writing leads readers through twists and turns as he toys with red herrings and archetypal characters that he adeptly turns on their heads. Lost Village has supernatural hints. The villain originally refers to himself as “The One” and, as he harvests victims, changes to the name “Havoc.” And he does a fantastic job wreaking havoc.
Fans of Shirley Jackson or the recent young adult Death Cast novel series will enjoy following “The Three Smart Boys” as they try to protect members of their village from Havoc and preserve their friendship in Lost Village, the first book in The Conawalki Murder Mysteries series by Michael Saver."
